


Ruin and Balance

by 1000Needles



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-14 16:17:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9192170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1000Needles/pseuds/1000Needles
Summary: After a few years he couldn't remember anymore why they stopped talking in the first place.Spoilers through the end of the game. Could be considered AU, depending on your interpretation of the ending.





	

I

While Gladio stood shouting at the king, he was aware of nothing but the cataclysmic violence of his anger. He walked away before he could do something so perilously stupid as lift his hands. It was when he returned to his seat that the despair hit him.

 

II

Ignis sat with his face turned to the window, the cold glass pressed to his aching wound, and thought: This cannot go on.

It did.

They shared a room on the train that night. As they lay in the narrow beds, neither sleeping, Ignis said, "We all wanted to go to Leviathan."

Gladio’s breathing had changed. Is he _crying?_ Ignis thought. 

"I know that," Gladio said; Ignis could hear the effort he was making to keep his voice normal. "I think about that every day."

 

III

For ten years, they don't speak.

 

IV

When the pretender falls, when the king dies, the line of Lucis dies with them. So does magic, for those few remaining survivors who could once use it. The blue flashes are gone with which they used to draw blades or spells; they carry weapons on their backs now. Lestallum elects a leader. 

Gladio sees the color come back into his skin. The first day, he gets sunburned. The second day, he hitches a ride with a hunter in an old Impala and travels down to Cape Caem. The abandoned house feels like the closest thing to home he can remember. He half-expects the other two to follow, but they never appear at the door, and after a while he forgets the expectation. It's like an echo of those ten lost years, when at first he kept thinking that something would soon crack, or mend, and bring Ignis back into the orbit of his daily routine. After a few years he couldn't remember anymore why they stopped talking in the first place. 

 

V

It takes a few years before the world really gets going again. Seeds, long saved in desperate hope, are unearthed from secret places. Farmers trade their swords back in for plows. In the fields, hops grow, and then beer reappears in the pubs. It gives Gladio heart to see it. Each dripping, sweating pint is like a glass of sunshine. He earns his gil doing what he can, here and there, and he has earned enough goodwill, over these past decades, the bright ones and the dark, that he doesn't have a hard time of it.

 

VI

It's a real hole in the wall, the kind of place you only stop at on a road trip, when you need a beer, you _deserve_ a beer, and your thirst makes even this dump look inviting, half the neon letters not working and sticky tablecloths and all. Gladio orders a lager and does his usual survey of the room: he still hasn't lost his soldier's intuition, the instinctive scan for doors, shadows, threats. 

He's on his feet before he's even conscious of recognition. He's halfway across the room, closing the distance between them, when Ignis lifts his face and says, "Gladio?"

 

VII

And Gladio remembers what Ignis once meant to him, and how much: enough to cause a scene on a train, enough to hurl words meant to wound a king.

 

VIII

"Holy shit," he says, "you look _terrible."_

"I wish I could say the same," says Ignis, laughing, but Gladio isn't. Last time they were together, before the sun rose, Ignis was death-pale, and so tired it hurt Gladio to look at him. He looks worse now.

"Don't you ever go in the sun?" he asks, and regrets it when Ignis curls around a glass of amber liquid and says, "No."

Ignis smells of whiskey. He's still clean-shaven, but the last time he shaved was at least a day ago, probably two. Gladio takes his hands, cups them in his palms: he's too old to be coy. "Why didn't you ever come to Cape Caem?"

"Too painful? Not painful enough?" Ignis says, his tone flippant, but even in the dim light Gladio can see the agony on his face. Then he pulls his hands away, lifts them to Gladio's face, and says, almost in wonder, "Are you crying?"

He hadn't realized. He sits, very still, letting Ignis's hands move over his face. "New scars," says Ignis.

"You, too."

Ignis grins. "Not as fast as I used to be."

"None of us are."

 

IX

He finds it easier than expected to talk Ignis into coming back to Cape Caem with him. They arrive in late afternoon; Gladio bundles Ignis in a quilt and strong-arms him into sitting on a couch long ago dragged out onto the porch. Ignis lifts his face to the sun, hesitantly, and then turns his head, as if ashamed. In the light, Gladio can clearly see Ignis's unhealthy pallor, how thin his face is.

He makes soup. He makes Ignis take the bigger bedroom. He doesn't press when Ignis disappears for hours to practice with lance and daggers on the windswept beach or, more frequently, sit on the rocks, knees drawn up, perfectly still.

And Ignis does start to get some color back in his face, the too-thin lines of his body soften, but he doesn't lose that hunted look. 

 

X

One morning, as they're washing dishes, Ignis says, "That night on the train? I should have gone to you."

Gladio looks at him in horror. The last thing he ever wants to think about, let alone speak of, is that monstrous train that narrowed all four of their lives down to a single pinprick moment, one-dimensional, with no possibility of lateral escape. Then he remembers that Ignis can't see his expression. "I— why." All he can recall of that night is utter, hopeless despair.

"We were so young." Ignis dries a plate. "All the fate of the world on our shoulders, and we were so young and stupid."

For an instant, the image of Ignis at twenty-two flashes before him like a superimposed photograph. So serious, but those brilliant eyes were always full of laughter if you looked closely. Not a mark on him. Gladio watches Ignis stack the plate, and the image snaps into vivid reality. Ignis is right in front of him, face lined and scarred and too thin and what the fuck has he been thinking? He drops a handful of forks into the soapy water and wraps his arms around the other man, pulling him into a tight hug. "By the gods, I've missed you, Iggy," he whispers.

"Are you crying again?" Ignis sounds sarcastic, but his body is shaking.

His hair is long now. It tangles in Gladio's fingers, the color of Cleigne wheat in the fields at dusk. "No. I'm going to kiss you." Before he can do it, Ignis reaches up and slips a hand behind his neck, pulls Gladio down to his lips. His mouth tastes like— his mouth tastes _good._ Gladio's heart feels like it's going to take flight right out of his chest. "I waited for you. I never gave up waiting for you. I always knew you would come back," he says, and Ignis just chokes, "Yes," into the kiss.


End file.
